Kaiser Permanente Insurance Co. was hit with a class action lawsuit in California on Tuesday, alleging the company of strong-arming the most disabled psychiatric patients into canceling their plans with the large insurance provider.

Received this press release yesterday, which we are reprinting in full below. NUHW is quickly becoming our favorite union. It is the same organization that crafted the complaint which recently resulted in a $4 million fine against KP for violating California mental health care laws. The link in the first paragraph takes you to a [...]

Highly recommended reading for everyone with an interest in how Kaiser’s rigged arbitration system works to keep its many misdeeds out of the public eye. It is rare for KP to lose in arbitration, but when they do, as in this case, “Kaiser offered to fund an annuity with the arbitration award, but only if [...]

Great news! The Arce vs. Kaiser autism class action lawsuit has been settled, resulting in the creation of a $9 million fund to reimburse members who incurred out-of-pocket expenses due to having their treatment denied. Anything left over will go to autism research.

Below are ten more Kaiser Permanente scandals from the time period when we were not regularly updating this website. Most of this information comes to us in Google News and Blog Alerts, but recently the Big G has taken it upon itself to carry water for Kaiser, and has blocked most critical websites from the [...]

Lawsuit alleges that a runner collapsed & died at the finish line of the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Half Marathon & 5K Run, because the medical tent was staffed by chiropractors and chiropractic students rather than medical doctors & EMTs, and no defibrillator or ambulance was present.

We’ll call this one the “George Halvorson, first reform your own organization” Edition.

An Elite Notary explains why it is so difficult to obtain legal representation in California in medical malpractice cases. Hint: it’s all about MICRA and mandatory binding arbitration, and claims against Kaiser have decreased 20% as a result. Just the legal filings, [...]

Another case of inappropriately accessed electronic medical records. This happens a lot. Anyone at KP with a Health Connect login can access your records at any time. Yes, there are access logs, and if it is discovered the person will be disciplined — but that [...]

So many scandals, so little time. Enjoy Part 3 of our belated Kaiser Permanente News Roundup.

Kaiser involved in Pay-to-Play scheme intended to provide lobbyists with off-the-record access to Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the Washington Post’s reporters and editors. So what else is new? The Colorado Division of Insurance fined Kaiser $367,000 [...]

Part 2 of the Kaiser Permanente stories we missed during our hiatus from posting:

After an initial refusal by Kaiser, California Department of Managed Health Care officials finally obtained the documents needed to complete investigation of a complaint that call center scripts sometimes lead to misdiagnoses and delayed care. Two Bay Area residents filed a [...]

Acknowledgment

Kaiser Thrive Exposed would like to personally thank Dr. Geoff Galbraith - former Kaiser Permanente Care Management Institute board member; and Vice President, Hawaii Permanente Medical Group, Quality Improvement Management - for inspiring us to create this website. Did we make it into the top 5?